How to prevent gam_server from running?

[Conrad J. Sabatier]

On Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:23:21 -0500
Steve Bertrand <steve.bertrand at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2012.02.15 17:57, Conrad J. Sabatier wrote:
> > Lately, I've been hovering hither and thither when it comes to which
> > desktop environment I choose when logging in, but several of them
> > seem to insist on starting gam_server, which is just a real CPU
> > hog, and once this thing is started, there's no stopping it.
> >
> > I've looked and looked and still can't figure out how to disable
> > it.  I can't even figure out where exactly it's being started
> > from.  Whether it's GNOME or XFCE or what-have-you, at login, some
> > add-on tool somewhere is launching this thing, and I just plain
> > don't want it!  :-)
> >
> > Any clues, anyone?  I'm really worn out from trying to solve this
> > one.
> 
> Is there anything in /etc/rc.conf relating to this server?
> 
> Steve

Well, naturally, that was the first place I checked, along with
probing /usr/local/etc, but no, I don't see any signs of anything
anywhere that could be causing this thing to run.  Nothing helpful
in the package's plist, either.  Undoubtedly, one of its REQUIRED_BYs
is responsible, but none of them are making it easy to track down.
It's really quite maddening.

This thing is a persistent little bugger, I tell ya.  I've tried
manually killing it repeatedly, using various signals, and it just
keeps resurrecting itself immediately, sometimes in even higher
numbers, like some evil being in a horror movie.  Kill one, and two
or more spring up in its place.  It's *evil*, I tell ya!  :-)

Well, where there's a will, there's a way.  I'll get to the bottom of
this eventually.  I would just uninstall it, but then it will most
likely be automatically reinstalled, too, when I upgrade something that
depends on it.  As Caiaphas sang in his menacing basso voice in "Jesus
Christ Superstar", "We need a more permanent solution to our problem".
:-)

-- 
Conrad J. Sabatier
conrads at cox.net